Giving evidence to a House of Lords committee, Bowles said that the UK "liked discipline when it applied to someone else, but not when it applied to them”.

She added: “On the one hand, the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority] and the PRA [Prudential Regulatory Authority] want to contribute to ESAs [European Supervisory Agencies], but they would also much rather do things by themselves.”

Reforms shaped by the agencies have irked the City of London, prompting the UK to bring several cases against the EU before the European Court of Justice on topics including short selling and proposals over the location of clearing houses.

When questioned about the UK response to post-crisis reforms, Bowles told the committee there was such “schizophrenia” in the UK over their impact that it was "tying itself in knots". She also said the country had a "regulatory selfishness" about it.

Related

She added: "The London Whale....and rate rigging happened in London, so we cannot stand up to rest of the EU and say we should regulate it and, by the way, export it to you.”

As chair of Econ, Bowles helped to shape a number of reforms, including the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive.

Lord Flight, a member of the Lords Committee and a director of several companies including Investec Asset Management, questioned Bowles on the impact of the AIFMD. The directive came into force this week and Flight said it was regarded as “way over the top in terms of reporting…and would result in quite a lot of business moving to Singapore".

In response, Bowles said that the directive wasn’t “anywhere as bad as you make out".

"Nobody likes additional reporting requirements, but the fact of the matter is we needed to know what was going on,” she said.

Bowles also commented on a pledge made last week by Jean-Claude Juncker, the new president of the European Commission, on the idea of a “capital markets union” to ease access to finance for companies.

Bowles said the idea presented a “major opportunity for the UK”, and that it should be “endeavoring to put some content into that space". She said she was meeting with HM Treasury officials next week to put forward her thoughts on the matter.